Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/169



the sixth year of ʿOmar's Caliphate, a desperate effort was made by the Greeks, at one moment not without some prospect of success, to shake off the Muslim yoke and recover possession of Northern Syria.

The movement is attributed to an appeal from the Christian tribes of Upper Mesopotamia, who besought the Emperor to save them from falling under the adversary's sway. Although the strongholds of Mesopotamia had fallen into the hands of Saʿd, yet their garrisons had little control over the wandering Bedawīn; and many of the Christian tribes still looked for support to the Persian or Byzantine rule. The maritime power of the West was yet untouched. Cæsarea with its naval supports remained proof against landward attack; and the whole sea-coast was kept unsettled by the fear, or by the hope, that a fleet might at any time appear. The Emperor now promised the dwellers in Mesopotamia to second their efforts by way of the sea. An expedition was directed from Alexandria against Antioch, while the Bedawīn gathered in great hordes around Ḥimṣ. Thus seriously threatened, Abu ʿObeida called in his outlying garrisons. But finding the enemy too strong to be dispersed by the force at his disposal, he sent an urgent summons for assistance to Medīna, Thereupon ʿOmar ordered Saʿd to despatch at once a strong column from Al-Kūfa under Al-Ḳaʿḳāʿ for the relief of Ḥimṣ; and likewise to effect a diversion in Upper Mesopotamia. Meanwhile the Greeks had landed from their ships. Antioch threw open her gates to them; and Ḳinnasrin, Aleppo, and other towns in the north, were in full revolt. A council of war was called. Khālid was for giving battle, but Abu ʿObeida, 140